John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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Censors and pirates/pirates and censors – my two favorite nemeses. So here’s this week’s example of wise censorship decision making: The Korean drama “My love from the Star” has finally been cleared for broadcast by China’s censors (after two years of delay). But a key change was required: the hero is no longer a “real” alien – he’s a fictional character in a novel. Good thing, that… we wouldn’t want those billion mainland Chinese people thinking there was a romance with a REAL alien! Oh, but wait… the uncensored version has already had 4 billion views on the Internet! Everybody’s seen the real alien already… |
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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Two of my favorite things, media and investing, both coming together in a smackdown piece by Michael Wolff. Digital Media’s Favorite Analyst: Often Quoted … and Often Wrong. "BTIG’s Richard Greenfield loves — loves! — being quoted on his favorite subject, the death of TV and the rise of disrupters. Just one problem: He’s been incorrect on everything from Facebook stock to CBS vs Time Warner Cable to social game company Zynga.” |
Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Speaking of investing, a new venture capital record has been set by Magic Leap, the augmented reality company that is regularly described as “mysterious”. The company has closed its latest round of financing by raising some US$793 million. Alibaba led the round, alongside other investors like Google, Qualcomm, Time Warner, and JP Morgan, to drop a few names, giving Magic Leap a valuation of US$4.5 billion. With all the buzz around AR and VR, it’s easy to get them confused; but the two technologies are quite different, possibly on “different planets”, even. That whole cosmic perspective makes more sense (or less, perhaps) after you read CEO Rony Abovitz’s latest blog post — heavy on stardust, light on details. |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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Indian regulator TRAI was supposed to have come out with its recommendations on differential pricing, Net neutrality and OTT services by now, but the industry waits with bated breath. Star TV’s CEO Uday Shankar weighed in with resolute support for neutrality (and opposition to Facebook’s Free Basics). Meanwhile, the debate continues to get political. While Telecoms Ministry hasn’t indicated any direction, country’s main Opposition party, Congress, has jumped into the fray now. It’s vice-president Rahul Gandhi took pot-shots at PM Modi saying `Digital India’ cannot become a euphemism for an Internet controlled by large corporations. The soap opera continues. |
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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Is anybody really surprised? Americans were warned that watching football on pirate websites leads to malware infections and loss of privacy. But I don’t think that will dissuade too many, unfortunately. Fools rush in… After all, pirated content is free. |
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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And in the world of online research, the Latin American pay-TV association Alianza published the result of an extensive study of online piracy in several LatAm countries. Who would like to chip in, so we can commission a similar study of Asia? |
Yegee Chun
Regulatory Assistant
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Facebook recently launched its new Audience Optimization tool, which improves ad targeting by providing publishers with a ranked list of over 282,000 user interests. Shockingly, “Facebook” is the top interest on the list, with an audience size of 1,466,365,990. Some of the categorizations and rankings seem downright bizarre, such as “Narcissistic parent” (audience size 41,660) and “Stop consonant” (audience size 50,616,390). Users can also view and edit a customized list of what Facebook thinks they are interested in. |
Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
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The Paley Centre for Media has just released a couple more videos of their fantastic interviews. For those interested in programming, Fox TV CEOs Gary Newman and Dana Walden discuss their unique approach to the creative process, nurturing series projects from both a network and a studio perspective and competing in the global marketplace. For those interested in the cable operator perspective Cablevision COO Kristin Dolan gets interviewed by AMC CEO Josh Sapan. |
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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For a fan of the market’s ability to serve best, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal, to allow any manufacturer to create cable boxes that can access pay-TV service, is going to be interesting to watch. Some of the history and ins and outs of it are looked at by The Verge in, Inside the FCC’s audacious plan to blow up the cable box. |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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Under pressure from various quarters and media companies’ dipping revenues in a flattening economy, TRAI now has floated a new consultation paper aimed at devising a holistic tariff structure for distribution platforms and whether there’s a need to regulate carriage fee. Some in the industry wonder where’s the need for such micro-management when many issues can be taken care of by market forces. |
